Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants (1986) by Matt Devlen

Director: Matt Devlen

Year: 1986

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

After a strange series of accidents, the residents of a small town find that the recent turn of events is due to a strange toxic chemical caused by a depleted ozone layer, turning them into flesh-eating mutants, and they must find a way of reversing its effects before the whole town is overrun.

Review:

On the whole, this is a watchable enough shot-on-video effort. Among the better elements here is the rather fun setup that manages to revel in the kind of ludicrous type of starting point this genre thrives on. The whole idea of the toxic chemical being used as the culprit for a hole in the ozone layer that causes everything to spiral out of control, with the first few scenes showing how the condition affects others and turns them into mutants, makes for a fun time getting to see the lives of the residents before everything gets turned upside down. While there are also a slew of extremely irritating scenes focusing on the citizens that comes off as padding, the general concept involving how everything goes about setting up the kind of environment where the sidestory about the student discovering how the situation has gotten as bad as it does, making for a great intrusion against these other scenes of the town being attacked before they start going crazy.

That allows this one to introduce a solid series of creature attacks that focus on the engaging ability to bring about the savagery and ferocity found in the different attacks. From the opening attack on the farmer attacking due to the contaminated chemicals, the farmer snapping while trying to tend to his gardening to go attack his wife, and the later scene involving the father talking about how ridiculous their theory is only to turn into one of the creatures to start chasing around the duo as they try to get to their car for safety, the attacks here come together rather well for what they are. It’s mostly used as an excuse to showcase the really cheesy gore throughout here involving the transformed creatures vomiting disgusting, colored liquids or ripping victims apart in graphic fashion, generating some immensely fun moments that help to aid the cheesy tone provided by the absurd slapstick and low-budget origins featured here.

Even with these positives, though, there are some big issues here. The most egregious is the plainly obvious and somewhat aggravating padding featured in the film, making this feel far longer than it really needs to be. The early life of the town is played out in extended, overlong sequences featuring the townspeople going about their everyday lives, tending to their farms, cleaning up the house, or other day-to-day lifestyle activities, which paint their lives in clear detail but also lower the excitement of this section by keeping the creature attacks to brief segments rather than anything else. Scenes involving the locals chasing live chickens through the house or engaging in a ludicrously long karaoke scene makes this far longer than it should by padding out the running time to limit the action until later on, and when this approach is mixed with an awfully obvious and distracting low-budget approach including the gore effects and a post-dubbed soundtrack that often fails to match up to what’s being said, there are some big drawbacks featured here.

Overview: ***.5/5

A sluggish but immensely fun shot-on-video effort where it matters, this one manages to get a lot of the important factors right, even if one of the main ones it gets wrong is what keeps it from being one of the all-time greats of the scene. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of the style or approach features here, while most others out there should heed caution with this one.